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bear fat soap

I have been making simple soap using ingredients that we are able to get easily, like lard, tallow, and beeswax, as well as essential purchased ingredients.

In the table below is the list of ingredients and amounts that I used. Because I have no desire to make lots of different kinds of soaps, I make lots all the same kind, and then store it in an open paper bag in the pantry.

I had the use of a great little scale from my friend Doug, so I could be somewhat accurate.

Find a Soap Calculator online and it simplifies soap making. Any substitution of ingredients will require a new calculation to make sure you have good results.

My settings on the soap app, Soap calc started with this:

Water as percent of oil weight

38%

Super Fat/Discount

5%

And then I started weighing out the oils:

#

Oil/Fat

%

Pounds

Ounces

Grams

1

Beeswax

4.1

0.17

2.75

78.0

2

Coconut Oil

21.0

0.88

14.00

396.9

3

Lard

15.0

0.63

10.00

283.5

4

Olive Oil

30.0

1.25

20.00

567.0

5

Tallow Bear

30.0

1.25

20.00

567.0

Totals

100

4.17

66.75

1892.3

The app then told me what amount of water and Lye I would need to mix to have the right reaction:

Ingredient

Pounds

Ounces

Grams

Water

1.59

25.36

719.09

Lye - NaOH

0.57

9.16

259.79

lemon grass organic essential oil (the good stuff) I used about 30 drops

What the quality we were aiming for was:

Soap quality

Suggested

Your Recipe

Hardness

29 - 54

31.6

Cleansing

12 - 22

14.8

Conditioning

44 - 69

58.1

Bubbly

14 - 46

14.8

Creamy

16 - 48

16.7

Iodine

41 - 70

64.1

INS

136 - 165

139.8

As you can see.... the soap quality is expected to be right in the green zone all the way! The soap calculator says to use just over 25 oz of water, but I only used 23 oz of water to make it a slightly dryer soap. My instructor told me you can cheat by as much as 10% on the amount of water.

Method:

place a cookie sheet in the bottom of your oven (in case of boil-over) and a rack just above it. Make sure the pot you will be using isn't too tall to fit in the oven. (don't laugh, I have some that won't fit) preheat the oven to 170F.

Prep some molds. I use silicon mini loaf pans. finished soap can just be cut into four slices.

spread out newspapers on your work surface. put on a long sleeved shirt, gloves, goggles (or safety glasses) and ensure you have LOTS of ventilation. I turned my stove fan on supercharge and opened a big window behind me, so the fumes would blow into the fume hood, not my face.

measure the water into a large glass bowl. weigh the lye in a separate glass bowl. Slowly stir the lye into the water, taking care not to breath the fumes. It will smoke and get hot. keep stirring until it goes clear. Leave it there while you prep the rest. DO NOT add water to lye!

measure melted oils by weight into a very large very clean stainless steel pot. Warm them a bit until the bees wax is also liquid. Exact temperatures don't really seem to matter, but I had the oil mixture at about 135-145 F.

Very carefully add the lye mixture to the oils and mix for a few minutes. Next, with a stick blender, taking care not to splash, thoroughly beat the mixture until it is about as thick as pancake batter. By the way, make sure your pot can hold at least twice as much liquid as you put in. This can foam up seriously.

place the pot in the preheated oven. Set the timer for 10-15 minutes to keep an eye on the soap. (It could take an hour for this step.) I stirred it every time I checked, but apparently it's not necessary. Couldn't help myself.

When the soap has turned translucent and looks like petroleum jelly, take it out of the oven. You can test the pH by mixing a tablespoon of soap into a cup of hot water and testing with a pH strip. should be below 10 or put it back in the oven for a bit. When you stir the soap, it should be about as thick as mashed potatoes.

Immediately add your essential oil and stir in. pour into molds and leave overnight. Cut into bars the next day and let this soap cure a bit to get hard. I suggest at least a couple weeks.

This was a really big batch at nearly 100 oz in weight. and I had originally thought I was going to do this in the slow cooker. Would have been all over the counter! So this ended up being done in the oven using this site for inspiration on the method http://otionsoap.com/hot-process-oven-process/

Clean up with vinegar. and use the soap left in your pans & on the spoon for washing the dishes. it's amazing stuff.

my first batch ever I added poppy seed as an experiment, but it's hard to rinse out of your hair. I used the slow cooker as in this recipe: http://www.diynatural.com/crock-pot-soap/ and it was great too, but would only use that method if I was making about half this much soap!

Hi TJ, You don't have to use lard to make great soap. but you will have to replace it with some other fat or combination of fats. I used lamb tallow last time. Just make sure to adjust the ingredients on your Soap Calculator to have the correct chemical reaction. thanks Nicole

Living in Powell River on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, I can finally have the garden of my dreams, full of food that feeds my friends and family. We keep bees and have a dozen chickens on an acre in a semi-rural part of the city. The bus stops at the end of the driveway, allowing me to work full time without owning a car. Life is good.